"
I awoke from that dream with beads of perspiration on my forehead. But I
dare not say what confused and terrible thoughts came next, except that
they were about baby--what I might do myself if driven to the last
extremity. When I slept and dreamt again, it was I who was dead, and it
was my darling mother who met me and took me to the feet of the Blessed
Virgin and said:
"Mother of all Mothers, who knows all that is in a mother's heart, this
is my little daughter. She did not intend to do wrong. It was all for
the sake of her child."
When I awoke in the morning, with the darkness shivering off through the
gloom, this last dream was sitting upon me like a nightmare. It
terrified me. I felt as if I were standing on the edge of a precipice
and some awful forces were trying to push me over it.
The London sparrows were chirping on the skylight over my head, and I
could faintly hear the Italian criers in the front street:
"Latte!" "Spazzina!" "Erbaggi freschi!"
In spite of myself (hating myself for it after all the tenderness that
had been shown me), I could not overcome a feeling of shame at finding
myself lying where I was, and I got up to run away that I might cleanse
my soul of the evil thoughts which had come to me while there.
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